SoTier

ROTFLMAO! Who's fault is that????? Who didn't want/care that Goodwin or Woods re-signed? Who drafted Zay Jones? Who traded away Watkins and traded for Benjamin? Who traded for Coleman rather than waiting for him to be cut and wasted $3.5 million in dead cap space? Who collected the rest of the scrubs that make up the Bills WR corps?

Another disingenuous Bills cheerleader making excuses for McDermott's poor decisions with personnel. You can pretend this is about scrubs who aren't on the current roster but you -- and every other knowledgeable Bills fan -- knows this is a reference to the three top class WRs the Bills didn't re-sign or traded away in 2017: Goodwin, Watkins, and Woods and were replaced with the slow, stone-handed bunch the Bills scraped up from among the NFL's worst scrubs. Since you seem to have "forgotten" that these WRs were Bills pre-McDermott, I'll remind you that last season, the three WRs the Bills got rid of all blossomed with their new teams: Marquise Goodwin caught 56 passes (53% of targets) for 962 yards and 2 TDs; Watkins caught 39 passes (56% of targets) for 593 yards and 8 TDs; Robert Woods caught 56 passes (66% of targets) for 781 yards and 5 TDs. This season they've all continued to shine. In fact on Sunday, Goodwin, Watkins, and Woods had 4 TDs among them.

28-17 Packers. Playing at home after a road loss and seeing what the Bills did to Minnesota will eliminate any chance that the Packers sleep walk through this ×game.

That's not correct. Peters' sheer athleticism in a man his size was impressive, but he didn't really have the speed or hands to be more than a low-end NFL TE which is why the Bills OL coach at the time convinced him to try out at OT ... and the rest is, as they said, history. Maybe the posters who suggest that Foster switch to DB are on to something.

One of the criticism of Luck in the past is that he tried to throw long too much, and the Indy coaching staff did little to curb that tendency. My guess is that Reich is trying to make Luck into a more disciplined -- and more effective -- QB who depends less on raw talent and more on intelligence, patience, knowledge, etc. Most successful QBs today aren't throwing lots of passes that travel long distances through the air.

I'm not "being angry". I'm skeptical. McDermott/Beane are 10-10, including a playoff loss. Including ass-kickings by LA Chargers twice, New Orleans, New England twice, and Baltimore. Including losses to Carolina, New England, Jacksonville and Baltimore in which all the Bills could muster in each game was a FG. That's not exactly impressive but pretend it is if it fits your fantasies.

Soooooo what? A single win after two horrible losses in which the team was totally out-classed doesn't give McDermott and Beane redemption although you're free to anoint them "great" if you want.

It was 1 game, so no, it's not "time to revisit" anything just yet. Bojoquez and Lewis were very late pick ups from other team's waiver cuts/practice squads (both from NE I think), and they were never particularly lumped in with the rest of the FAs the Bills brought in during the off season. They may turn out to be the best of the Bills off-season FA signings. I don't think the criticism of the Ivory signing was so much about his on-field play as about his age and contract; most critics thought that the Bills should have gone with a younger RB. I think Ivory is an okay sub for McCoy, and he and M Murphy did a nice job replacing Shady against the Vikings. Does that last? Who knows? With Star and T Murphy, the problem I have with them is that they are very expensive for what the team gets: Star has not played well for a couple of years, and T Murphy has been injured and then suspended for PEDs for over a year IIRC, and their play has been "okay" at best. So, they're a couple of JAGs getting paid like they're top notch players at their positions. Finally, Phillip Gaines has been a liability at CB opposite White, so maybe it's just as well that he's injured and Lewis replaced him.

We have to hope that Allen continues to learn, too. At some point every QB stops learning and improving. For most it comes fairly early in their pro careers. For a few, it comes much later, which is why they're considered great. Actually, 27-0 at the beginning of the third quarter is not an insurmountable lead for an offensively talented team like the Vikings. I expected the Vikings to come out in the third quarter and at least make it a game, and I was surprised that they never did. If they had scored a couple of TDs early in the third quarter, then the narrative for the remainder of the second half changes dramatically.

Amazing game! Congrats to the team! I really thought that the Vikes would come out in the second half and make it a game. That never happened. I think they didn't even get into the red zone until the fourth quarter.

Okay. That makes more sense. I thought that you were equating a team covering the spread as winning the game. Maybe to gamblers it is, but to team fans, it's sort of "whoopty doo".

There's no divide on the Bills because all of the scouts were fired shortly after Whaley got the axe and replaced with hand-picked pals of McDermott and Beane, mostly from -- surprise -- Carolina. IIRC, there was a report shortly after the Raiders traded Mack that Gruden's move caught the Raiders FO somewhat by surprise. I'm guessing that that report stemmed from this divide.

I thought of this while watching one of the football commentary shows last week and they were discussing Aaron Rodgers' bad knee. If the Bills crap the bed again against the Vikings, I wouldn't at all be surprised if Kizer started for the Packers when they play the Bills. First of all, while it's likely a player a team intended to rest would be inactive, there's no rule that he has to be. He could just not start. Secondly, there's a big difference between covering the spread and actually winning.

Point. Set. Match. Blaming the players for a team's failures is like blaming foot soldiers for losing battles rather the generals.

In order for the Bills to be like 2018 Bears in 2019, they have to can McDermott, give control of player selection to Beane, hire an offensive minded HC, and finally trade for Von Miller or some other game changer on defense. That ain't happening, which is probably just as well because after seeing the crap McDermott and Beane have put on the field in the form of FAs in 2018 and the stupid trades the Bills have made under Beane, putting Beane totally in charge of player personnel would make the Browns FO at their very worse look astute.

PFF's ratings of OLers and QBs seem to be seriously flawed because they consistently seem to rate lesser players higher than they ought to be and better players lower than they should be.

I totally agree with your assessment of Mayfield. I'm usually very reluctant to jump on the bandwagons of young QBs because so many fail to continue to develop and become true franchise QBs, but Mayfield's performance against the Jets was absolutely amazing. I've never seen any rookie QB -- or any QB in his first start -- come into a game and simply take it over.

If there's one thing that Bills fans know about, it's "not exactly a high caliber franchise" since they've been cheering for one every football season for the last 20 years. In your opinion. His teams have hung tough both last year and this so far, despite all the losses, and that's impressive. His teams have been well prepared. He's smart enough to hire two first rate coordinators. Coaches have different styles, and Hue's style may fit today's players -- especially younger players -- better than other some coaching styles. For the first time in his tenure in Cleveland, he's got talent on both sides of the ball. Bills fans have been brainwashed into thinking no WR is worth the going rate for top proven vets for their position. Well, now they've got their potential franchise QB and he has crap for a receiving corps.

It wouldn't be too hard to be better than most of the Bills OLers with the possible exception of LT Dion Dawkins.

This is an excellent post! Congrats! As I've said numerous times in the past, Allen has been set up to fail because the team around him is so bad. In any field, the individuals who succeed without some kind of support from family, friends, teammates, teachers, etc are very rare because no one exists in a vacuum.

The Bills get embarrassed again by giving up 30+ points in the first half while scoring a FG themselves. The Vikes work on honing their running game in the third quarter and give PT to their subs in the fourth, which keeps the score under 50. 48-10 Vikes. ********************************************************************* Holy crap!!! This has got to be the biggest upset in the NFL so far. Maybe in the entire season!

That's because Iowa seems to regularly produce good OLers. It's like back in the day when Penn State used to be noted for its LBs.

Watkins' rookie contract was up. LA tried to re-sign him but they couldn't agree to a deal, so he walked. The difference between the Rams last season and KC this season versus the Bills is that those teams have lots of other targets for Goff and Mahomes. Watkins was and is one of several fast, sure-handed WRs the Rams and the Chiefs have provided to help their young QBs shine. Who the hell have the Bills given Allen? Maybe I should also ask 'what the hell have the Bills provided to help their young QB?' because they haven't given him any sort of protection in the form of a competent OL, a decent running game so he doesn't have to throw 30 plus times a game or even a respectable defense, either. That's what angers me most: that the Bills are setting up Allen to fail because NO QB -- not Rodgers or Brady or P Manning -- could be successful on this team because its talent level is on a par with an expansion team's. I didn't like the Allen pick at all, but now that he's a Bill, I sure don't want him to fail. It's hard enough for any QB to succeed in the NFL without being sabotaged by an organization that demonstrates weekly it's still as disinterested in winning football games as it ever has been.

The defense isn't the dumpster fire that the offense is, but that isn't saying much, and they haven't played very well so far. White, Hyde, Poyer, and Hughes are bonafide NFL talents. At this point in their careers, Williams and Alexander are somewhat questionable. Star and MIlano are JAGs at best. Edmunds is a rookie struggling to adjust to an entirely new situation. The rest of the Bills defensive roster is trash, although a better class of trash than the steaming pile of offal that's on offense it's true.

The Bills don't have "some depth issues". They have a significant lack of NFL caliber players on their roster, period, including most of the starters on both sides of the ball.